Are CD drives getting less usable as time passes?

[KennyR]

Recently I bought a new CD-ROM and a CD-RW, one to replace an old drive that didn't work anymore. I put a CD my 48x CD-ROM drive - and it sounds like a chainsaw. The drives spins the CD so fast that it is actually slower with small files as it constantly has to speed up and speed down. The noise is truly terrible, and the heat from the drive if spinning for a few minutes can't be good.

Compare that to an 8x drive I've had in my PC for years. It's ultra quiet, and fast with smaller files, and doesn't get hot. I can play CD-ROMs full of mp3s all day and it doesn't get hot or broken. If I did that with my new ones I'd be lucky to hear the mp3s, and I'd probably damage something.

So why are we paying for this crap? I think we've been suckered by the old "bigger numbers is better" sales pitch and bought stuff we don't even need, which is even less usable than before because of it. And does the same go for CPUs, do you think?

[amigamad]

Your right on the noise and heat my liteon cd writer is ok but my lg dvd rom is noisy smooth tray mechanism though, and my phillips in the second pc is noisy and not very smooth you can feel the vibrations.I guess its the price for what they call progress. :-)

[patrik]

Fortunately CD-ROMs have the possibility be controlled by software to spin in a number of different speeds. That would enable you to run your 48X drive in 8X. If you are using windows on your pc I know for certain that a number of utilities exists.

Whenever I watch a movie using my PC I use the utility "Nero DriveSpeed" to set my CD-ROM to 8X. There is some software and text about this here:  CD Speed

On the amiga I am not so sure if anyone have written a utility like this.


/Patrik

[KennyR]

CD Speed looks like an interesting tool, but its not very flexible. You can limit your speed but it stays limited until the next reboot, and it the drive can't speed up again if it needs it. Maybe someone should code an app for the Amiga that lets the drive run at the speed you need, rather than always at full.

[mikeymike]

Buy a decent DVD drive, either Toshiba or Pioneer.  Main difference is noise, and performance is pretty damn good, with lots of small files as well.

[Linchpin]

i know the problem - i had a 56x rom in my pc, it got so hot with a cheap(er) CDR in it the silver top of the disk peeled away and i took 3 hours cleaning the drive. Utter uslesness concidering it takes 1. longer to spin up and 2. the speed of data transfer is not that greater anyway, id rather wait a few seconds longer than 35mins to reburn a CDR. The best drive(s) i ever had were my samsung SCR32-32 and my old pioneer super10x

[alx]

Then there are the horror stories of CDs cracking up inside the drive and shards flying out (happened to a friend of mine, but it all stayed inside the drive).  I read about some people who were very concerned with this at schools, where the drives are often at eye-level.  And at the end of last year, a load of manufactures decided not to produce 56x CD-Rs, staying at 48x instead:

"Along with Sony, Yamaha, and Plextor, Maxell has decided that spinning a disc fast enough for 52X recording is dangerous, producing a level of stress that can damage the disc"

I just get by on a 36x reader, 8x writer (slow, but does the job) and the A1200 makes do with a 4x reader!

[Linchpin]

In my PC (My miggy aint got no CD:-( ... )

i have a 32 speed reader

Teac 4x writer (slow but will write a book if you ask it to - would never change it seen as i write most of my CDs for the car i do it at 1x)

[elendil]

I completely agree, which is why I stick with my two 6/2 speed scsi burners and my 14.4 speed scsi cdrom drive.

I have some low-speed IDE drives around somewhere too, should I need a cdrom-drive for a pc or whatnot. I would most certainly never pay ANYTHING for the "new" drives.

Sincerely,

-Kenneth Straarup.

[StevenJGore]

I think it depends very much on the manufacturer of the drive:

My LG 48x CD-RW is very quiet and ultra-reliable.
My 16x Pioneer DVD slot drive is also very quiet and ultra-reliable, and reads files at lightning speeds.
My 24x Cyberdrive CD-ROM for my A1200 is ultra-reliable but not as quiet as my LG and Pioneer drives which are much faster.
I have heard some cheap/unbranded drives that sound like Concorde taking off!

[DamienMcKenna]

The problem is the drive's access time verses the read speed.   Take a look at this to start with:

most 16x and higher drives are "constant angular velocity" (CAV) drives, instead of "constant linear velocity" (CLV).

CAV starts out about "half speed" and then speeds up to faster speeds as the write moves from the inside of the disk to the outside.  So a 24x might only start at 8, 10 or 12x.  A 32x might start out at 12, 14 or 16x.  A 48x might start out at 16, 20 or 24x, etc...

The fastest CLV drive I ever had was a Lite-On 16x.  It whipped my CAV drive TDK 24x at writing Yellow Book, sub-5 minutes to almost 6 minutes.

http://www.matrixlist.com/pipermail/pc_support/2002-November/002408.html

So, along with the CAV/CLV speed issue confusing matters, you have the fact that the drive is going to wait to read any data until it has fully speed up to its appropriate revolution veliocity for that area of the disc.

In a nutshell, your drive takes so long to read data as it is so fast.  As the read speed increases, the read access times decrease.

Damien

[amigamad]

I have heard some cheap/unbranded drives that sound like Concorde taking off!

With my philips its cheap and branded .my lg dvd drive was bought because it is my favorite budget make being that lg stuff is very reliable and is easy to make it multiregion it replaced my old mutiregion panasonic which took quite a while to acess discs as well as not reading some cdr discs.plextor make the best drives. :-) My old 4 speed teac writer is the best at everything leaves a liteon standing for quality.

[bhoggett]

I've recently bought a Plextor PleXCombo PX-320A DVD/CD-RW drive, and I have to admit I'm quite pleased with it. The drive is relatively quiet when reading, and performance is quite acceptable, a huge improvement over my old PleXWriter 4/2/20 drive.

OTOH, I've had both a 48X CD-R and a DVD drive that took ages to get up to speed and sounded like jet aircraft taking off.

It depends on the drive. Not all new/fast drives are bad, and not all of them are good.

[amigamad]

The prices of the drives now and the manafacturers need to make everything cheaper to compete with cheaper makes  of drive im sure does not help .To be honest my thermaltake 9 cpu fan cooling my athlon xp 2400 makes more noise i ran it at just under 4000rpm, very loud at a max of 5800rpm. :-D

[Floid]

Depends on the drive.  This IBM I'm using came with a Toshiba 4x? 8x? 12x? that's as noisy as a "jet engine" 40x Lite-On.  Meanwhile, Lite-On (they're a huge manufacturer) makes tons of different movements and firmwares, some better than others.

I recently wound up with a "52x24x52" AOpen/BenQ rebadge that's much "smoother" in operation than most things I've tried- they've probably gone to fluid-dynamic-bearings or somesuch on the motor, though heck if I know.  I believe one of the buzzwords involved means "We spin the drive up to about 8x, then faster if it proves to be a sustained read."

So... it's a tossup, and as these things are now as cheap and as common as floppy movements, it'll probably continue to be.  Anyone have a favorite make of floppy that's *consistently* good across all random model variations you might get paying $5 for a drive?